Optical polarization for 878 Hipparcos stars

It has been widely believed that some kind of interaction could be occurring between the LC and Loop I, a nearby superbubble seen in the direction of the Galactic center. As a result of such interaction, a wall of neutral and dense material, surrounded by a ring-shaped feature, would be formed at the interaction zone.

Evidence of this structure was previously observed by analyzing the soft X-ray emission in the direction of Loop I. Our goal is to investigate the distance of the proposed annular region and map the geometry of the Galactic magnetic field in these directions. On that account, we have conducted an optical polarization survey of 878 stars from the Hipparcos catalog. Our results suggest that the structure is highly twisted and fragmented, showing very discrepant distances along the annular region: ~100pc on the left side and 250pc on the right side, independently confirming the indication from a previous photometric analysis.